Naim Frashëri - Founder and professor of Albanian literature for children

Abstract

The tradition that Naim created is alive and inspirational even among the lives of the present society. More than a writer, Naim is the greatest poet of our National Renaissance, is a patriot, think-tank and famous activist of education and Albanian culture. His most special merit in this literary creativity stands in the fact that he raised the literature for children at a higher artistic level, strongly affecting the other Renaissance figures. Which are the virtues that Naim Frashëri wants to develop among the children? As a writer and professor, Naim aimed to activate through his creativities the intellectual and educational thought and the spiritual moral emancipation of the children. In his literary creativity, Naim Frashëri appears not only as a famous writer and poet, but as a great professor at the same time, publishing literary and pedagogical works. The book Reader for boys with short stories distinguished him as a talented prose writer for children, whereas the poetic art in the collection Poetry for the first grades established him as the founder of the poetry for children, where Naim appears as an educator and serves as a propagandist of the noble virtues of love for work, of honour, faith, justice, truth, humanism, will for learning and knowledge, love for one’s country. In the general view of this literature, as a poet and writer through different genres and types, Naim aims to give advices, to convey wisdom and philosophy but also to emanate elements of culture and good manners, behaviour and moral. Naim, likewise his predecessors: Naum Veqilharxhi and Kostandin Kristoforidhi, dedicated himself to the literature for children to deeply affect the conscience and moral of the children. In this point of view there is another reason why Naim dedicated himself to the literature for children: he was convinced that the boundaries of the linguistic culture of the nation are laid down at school and in childhood. “Little boys and maids need to learn their language, to read it correctly and write it good”. Thus, the poetry and prose for children subdue to his aim; the artistic and patriotic education of children. Therefore, for this contribution that he brought, Naim Frashëri deserved being named as the founder of Albanian literature for children and as its main representative during the National Renaissance.